


The Lute-Player's Daughter

by avani



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, The Lute Player (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Setting Change, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Female Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21750481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: The lute Ghoshavati was the stuff of legends; played in the hand of a master such as Udayana, it could tame the fiercest of beasts and bend the elements to mortal will. Udayana’s daughter, however, who found herself presented with it, was nothing of the sort.
Relationships: King/Queen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Lute-Player's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



When the _rani_ was asked why she had gone to such lengths to save her husband’s kingdom, she could only reply that after all it had seemed her own since that first fleeting moment she had caught sight of it. The view from the palanquin had only offered a glimpse of lush fields and limber trees, but even that had been enough. At twelve, still smarting from a lifetime sentence of matrimony so far away from father and mothers, she had found her consolation in the broad smiling faces that cheer her arrival along the way. 

The question of why she had bothered to rescue her husband is--more complicated. _Him_ she remembers on her arrival as a brutish, burly boy prepared for neither throne nor queen and forced into accepting both by his father’s premature death. By the time he looked her up and down and pronounced her strictly adequate, she had to be held back by three struggling nurses to keep from kicking him firmly about the shins in retaliation. Even the realization, in retrospect, that he had been hardly eleven months her senior does little to soothe her indignation. Her husband was no gentleman. 

(“Not,” whispered one of her nurses when they believed their charge safely asleep, “that there aren’t worse things to find in a man. Wasn’t our master sweet-tongued as the sun and gallant as one of the gods; but didn’t he bedevil our poor queen by taking wife and after wife into his bed?”)

Still the _rani_ wishes her father had prepared her better for what she would face, but instead their last leave-taking had been stilted at best. He was little better than a stranger throughout her childhood, but one she had been told it was her duty to love, and so she settled for a sullen sort of longing for any morsels of affection he might throw in her direction. She imagined his feelings as much the same, and so it was no little surprise when he handed to her, in bright silk wrappings, his prized _veena_.

She knew the stories, of course. Ghoshavati was the stuff of legends; played in the hand of a master such as Udayana, it could tame the fiercest of beasts and bend the elements to mortal will. Udayana’s daughter, however, who found herself presented with it, was nothing of the sort. Her fingers on the strings were clumsy; her arms ached at the thought of carrying the wretchedly heavy thing about. But it was a parting gift, and so she gave orders for it to be included among the belongings she brought to her husband’s home. 

Before long she was glad of it. For five years her husband did not so much as glance in her direction, and his women’s quarters, empty of mothers or aunts or concubines, was lonely and ghost-ridden. Practicing the _veena_ seemed as good an occupation as any other, with the additional benefit that it annoyed her husband, who was fond of announcing loudly that he did not think music, no matter how pleasing to the ear, to be of any use to any one. 

In the sixth year of their marriage, he went to war. 

She could not say she was sorry to see him go. For some days she had suspected that what drove him above all else was a passionate desire to prove himself superior to his sire, and what simpler way to do so than conquest where the previous king had always failed? For all his faults, her husband had grown into a talented warrior, and she supposed he had as good a chance as any other of success. Besides, it would mean she could be free of him for a few months at least. 

Except she wasn’t. For the first weeks, of course, she reveled; but all too soon she realized that in her husband’s absence, no one was left to govern the kingdom but his ministers. While more than one of them had occasional glimmers of brilliance, they none of them could ever reach an agreement on their own. Unguided they would pay no attention to the plight of paupers, and only seek to improve their own lots. The _rani_ , who after all knew what it was to be ignored, found she could not watch in silence. 

She did what any other woman in her situation might: announced that her dear absent lord had written to her, a long letter detailing all his decrees and entrusted to her to communicate. The palace’s ministers, previously unaware of any particular affection between the _rani_ and her husband, not to mention basic literacy on his part, made the usual protests, but the _rani_ was resolute. Within a fortnight she had worn them down, veiled and hidden away by screens though she was; her word was their law. 

Until word came from the battlefield that her husband had been defeated: and not only that, but captured. In the brief terse words which she might expected from him, he informed her (should she somehow be raised ignorant of how these matters were conducted) that she was to send a ransom for him to the rival king who’d bested him. Naturally he commanded this without any idea of the extent of the ransom, or how it would bankrupt the royal treasury for decades to come. The _rani,_ thoroughly irritated but not truly worried, dispatched a message and _rakhi_ to the rival king, lying prettily about how she saluted his valor and venerated him as her newest honorary brother, but the palace was terribly drafty without a husband and if he could perhaps send hers home?

He refused. If, his envoy sneered, she found her bed so cold, she was welcome to garland his own neck in matrimony. Either way the insolent stripling who had challenged him without just cause would rot in the dungeons until the end of his days. 

At first the _rani_ lied to her councilors. Her husband had been freed but wished to linger with his host. Her husband had come to visit her just the night before, and set out before daybreak on another journey. Why, of course she had the right to make decisions for the kingdom! Was she not the mother-to-be of its heir?

Eventually she knew her ruse would fail. For one thing, even the most outrageous pregnancy wouldn’t last more than ten months, and she had no idea where to procure a baby without inviting servants’ gossip. For another, eventually other kings would turn covetous eyes to a country unprotected. If she went before her ministers, they would insist on paying the ransom—and that would destroy the land even more surely than invasion.

So she announced that the last few stages of childbirth forced her into seclusion, and under cover of night, had her hair shorn short. It was not unlike what a pious widow might do, except that she intended something far more audacious: to travel under cover of manhood until she might bring her husband back home and save the kingdom she loved.

She took Ghoshavati with her, of course, as much out of superstition as sense. It did not, after all, prove much use at taming beasts with its strings no matter how well she played; but, most gratifyingly, was very efficient indeed in chasing them away when she swung it as a club. By the time she reached the boundaries of the rival king’s country, so many people had mistaken her for a young bard that she half-believed it herself. It was not until she bowed before the king of that country and offered to play for his court that she realized precisely how much danger she was in.

She might have chosen any song; she played the lullaby she had heard Udayana playing from his pavilion night after night. Always she tried her best to believe that he played it only for her, letting the sweet sounds carry a message of care and concern to the daughter he hardly knew.

When the rival king struck his thigh in appreciation of her talent, she jumped; and looked even more surprised when he offered her anything in his possession as reward. At best she had hoped for a fine necklace she might later use to bribe the guards, but this was all too easy. She needed a companion on her travels, she said, a strong swarthy fellow who might carry her belongings, and to inconvenience her host as little as possible, she would choose from among the prisoners.

She had expected her husband to make an ill-tempered servant at best, and toyed with abandoning him once the border had been safely crossed; but to her surprise, he proved himself a thousand times more cheerful and charming than she had ever known him. Imprisonment had humbled him, or at least given him the freedom to be his own man rather than his father’s ghost. He had learned to play the flute from his fellow soldiers, and though he couldn’t compare to her talent at present, one day he swore he would be skilled enough to make music beside her. Without complaint he took Ghoshavati from her when her arms wearied, and by firelight he laughed and told her; “Please. Call me Harsha.”

Six years she’d known him, been wed to him, and never known which of the many names he bore was closest to his heart. Now she did.

She set him free when the palace neared, and bit her lip in sudden grief to imagine this new self lost to her, even as she hid her sun-darkened face and too-short hair away within her veil. When she entered the assembly hall, he broke off his tale of his rescue at the hands of a brave young bard. But his eyes when they looked towards her were softer than they were, and more unsure, and for the first time she could remember, she smiled at him and she hoped—

“Your Majesty,” interrupted one of the ministers who she had never liked or trusted, and who had never liked her in return. “Much as it grieves me, I must reveal that your honored wife refused outright to pay your ransom while you were away, and—what’s worse—even lied to the world that she was with child in your absence.”

Her husband’s face stilled, and for an instant the _rani_ ’s heart nearly stopped with fear. A woman without her virtue would be disgraced, disowned, thrown out into the wilderness alone….

...And would that be so bad? She had survived it once before after all, with only Ghoshavati to protect her—then she knew what she must do to save herself.

She took up her _veena,_ the one her husband must recognize after having carried it so far, and played the beginning of the song that had won the rival king’s heart. Then, daring greatly, in the sight of all the court, she removed her veil.

Certainly some of the faces she saw were unfriendly, scandalized and scornful. But others, especially those courtiers she most respected, looked only thoughtful to gaze upon the ruler they had obeyed for so many months, and past all of that, she saw her husband’s face, bright with recognition. 

“Would you speak malice,” her husband said pointedly, “of the woman who has done so much to save me? I owe her my life; I owe her everything.”

He smiled at her, as he had before, and she did not retreat then, as much as she wanted to. Instead she set Ghoshavati down and raised her eyebrows challengingly. “What other business,” she demanded of her court, “are we now to address?”

Her husband did not protest, or even scowl; but watched in silence as she put his kingdom into order once more.

He said no more to her, nor she to him, but by nightfall she heard a flute echo in the darkness outside her chambers, and knew Harsha meant every note for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yule, and thank you for all your hard work modding! I was charmed at the thought of a setting AU for this fairy tale, and also about the existence of the Indian myth of [Udayana](http://www.manuscrypts.com/myth/2011/02/16/udayana/), another fairy tale romance that centers around a lute. I hope you enjoy this!  
> *rani= Hindi word for queen   
> *rakhi= an amulet traditionally given by sisters to their brothers; often historically used by royalty as a way for women to ask favors and ally with unrelated men (by addressing/adopting them as honorary brothers)


End file.
